That Could Happen : Nature Writing, the Nature Fakers, and a Rhetoric of Assent

Much has been made about the relationship between nature writing and science. The foundation of the genre is empirical observation of the more-than-human world. That’s not the whole of it, however. Because of the pairing of empiricism and other human experience, readers come to the genre with certain assumptions: they assume the text will tell them something independently verifiable about the object world--something they could see, hear, or touch if they were in the same location at the same time. They assume they are reading nonfiction, and for most readers, that distinction is important. Readers also come to nature writing with the hope that the writer will use imagination to help them see the world in a new way and possibly offer them a different and better relationship to the more-than-human sphere. If the proceeding is true, nature writing as a genre is unique, and we must ask: how should we read nonfiction nature writing? How does the nonfiction distinction change the relationship between the writer and the reader? The writer and the world? The reader and the world? In this article, Sumner argues that a rhetoric of assent is necessary when reading nature writers because nature writers are imaginatively exploring how we humans can establish a more ethical relationship with the more-than-human world

The New Nature Writing

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. In the last decade there has been a proliferation of landscape writing in Britain and Ireland, often referred to as ‘The New Nature Writing’. Rooted in the work of an older generation of environment-focused authors and activists, this new form is both stylistically innovative and mindful of ecology and conservation practice. The New Nature Writing: Rethinking the Literature of Place connects these two generations to show that the contemporary energy around the cultures of landscape and place is the outcome of a long-standing relationship between environmentalism and the arts. Drawing on original interviews with authors, archival research, and scholarly work in the fields of literary geographies, ecocriticism and archipelagic criticism, the book covers the work of such writers as Robert Macfarlane, Richard Mabey, Tim Robinson and Alice Oswald. Examining the ways in which these authors have engaged with a wide range of different environments, from the edgelands to island spaces, Jos Smith reveals how they recreate a resourceful and dynamic sense of localism in rebellion against the homogenising growth of “clone town Britain.

Facts, Shapes, Our Relationship with the Landscape: A Conversation with David Quammen

This interview with David Quammen is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

Nature Writing, American Literature, and the Idea of Community: A Conversation with Barry Lopez

This interview with Barry Lopez is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

\u3cem\u3eTestimony\u3c/em\u3e, Landscape and the West: A Conversation with Stephen Trimble

This interview with Stephen Trimble is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

\u3cem\u3eTestimony\u3c/em\u3e, \u3cem\u3eRefuge\u3c/em\u3e, and the Sense of Place: A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams

This interview with Terry Tempest Williams is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing

Activism, Fly Fishing, and Fiction: A Conversation with David James Duncan

This interview with David James Duncan is part of a series of conversations with contemporary western writers about the ethical and cultural implications of nature writing